


Everything Looks Perfect From Far Away

by RedHorse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 12 Grimmauld Place, Dreams, Harry is underage, M/M, Masturbation, and remains so, but also oblivious, if that's any comfort, one-sided Sirius/Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 15:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17511125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: Harry was captured at the Department of Mysteries before the Order arrived. Sirius called upon the darkest part of himself to stage a daring rescue, but now that he’s unmoored, he’s finding it difficult to reach the shore.





	Everything Looks Perfect From Far Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [This_is_your_Heichou_speaking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_is_your_Heichou_speaking/gifts).



> To hei! Thanks for sailing this lonely little ship with me! ❤️
> 
> Thanks to Wolf_of_Lilacs for beta reading.

In Azkaban, Sirius’s dreams had been his escape. That was not to say they were pleasant; they were their own torment. But at least they contained color, urgency, and pain. He missed pain. _Real_ pain. Not the gnawing in his gut from starvation, or the throb of deep bruises when he was the one knocked down and bowled over in the press of bodies at the feeding point. Not the burning sting of seawater in a fresh wound (because it was _all_ seawater, it seemed; every damp place and every trickle of moisture through the stone).

In Azkaban, a place where bodies were sent to be forgotten, their occupants tended to forget them, too. Reality felt confined to dreams and memory. So Sirius dreamed long and often of James’ proud, watery laugh when he’d handed baby Harry over for Sirius’s inspection the day he was born. That version of Harry: dense black hair, eyes determinedly closed, his chin only as big as a thumbprint. Remus nearby and dabbing a steady stream of tears from his eyes and Lily, exhausted but gorgeous, holding his hand.

Or sometimes the baby was Regulus. Or Regulus was a year old and taking his first toddling steps toward Sirius with a gummy grin.

There were more of course, real in an entirely different way, but curiously welcome: Peter’s every look askance, muttered excuse, laugh and shrug that weren’t quite right and that Sirius had somehow missed. The squelching carpet under Sirius’s boots when he’d dropped to his knees by James’ body. James’ blood saturating the legs of his trousers, his hands, so he left a trail of it from Godric’s Hollow to Wormtail.

Now Sirius’s dreams were no solace. The waking world was confusing enough, without this nightly parade of horrors. When it had been the place he spent all his days, Azkaban had left him be at night. Now it was all he saw, except in these dreams he knew that beyond the walls the whole world was waiting, that Remus was alone and Voldemort hunted Harry—that there was another place he should be. When Azkaban was his reality, he had only thought about the past. In a way, that had been a mercy. At least the past couldn’t make him feel restless anymore; there was nothing to be done about it.

“Sirius?”

He was still half-immersed in a deep dream of lying motionless on a stone floor, wondering whether he would die before he was offered water again, while a Dementor looked down on him.

“Sirius?” came the voice again. But the dream clung to him. The Dementor hovered parallel to his body, its tattered robes trailing beneath it, the void of its cowl angled as though its head was cocked. As though it found Sirius curious.

“Sirius!”

Harry.

Sirius sat up, reached for the wand beneath his pillow with one hand, and rubbed at his eyes with the other. He could only just make out the pale silhouette of Harry, blurry as a ghost in the foggy light of a half-arsed _Lumos_ on Sirius’s wand tip.

“I’m sorry to wake you up,” said Harry, his voice very small. He was clutching the doorframe as though holding himself there by sheer force of will, or perhaps holding himself back. “I can’t...um, I was wondering whether…”

Sirius understood. He recalled months of sleepless nights, himself, in this tomb the Order had put him in. Merlin, how he hated it. At least for Harry, the only ghosts were the literal ones, and they were largely harmless.

“Let’s go downstairs and have some tea,” he said. “I can’t sleep either.”

Harry looked enormously relieved, though Sirius could see by his shy smile that he wasn’t fooled by Sirius’s lie. For better or worse, Sirius had certainly been asleep when Harry came in.

By silent agreement, they went to the study which had been mostly cleared of its original furnishings, a sort of oasis within easy reach of the kitchen, which was as far from the Floo as guests ever seemed to get and had therefore become a secondary gathering place. It was also a part of the house that hadn’t seen much use when Sirius was growing up. The Blacks tended to leave the kitchen to the elves. Along with a blissful shortage of memories for Sirius, the basement study now boasted the most modern, and therefore most comfortable, furnishings in the house. Including an oversized Muggle sofa that the Weasley twins had proudly delivered, citing a source called “Craigslist,” and a teetering coffee table that Sirius had painstakingly reinforced with magic so that it was functional even with just three legs.

Not wanting to leave Harry while he popped out to the kitchen, Sirius grudgingly called for Kreacher. He and the elf scowled at one another a moment, then Harry broke in, quiet and polite, and asked Kreacher for tea. Kreacher, for reasons unknown, did not argue with Harry. Especially not since he’d become a full-time resident of 12 Grimmauld Place.

Harry sat on one end of the couch and Sirius took the other, then he watched Harry absently rub his scar, which was red and inflamed.

“Still very bad?” Sirius asked, trying to keep his voice calm and even. Speaking to people was always a challenge, but it was worse when he was sleepy.

“He’s...angry,” Harry said, chewing on his lower lip. “He imagines killing you more creatively than he ever did me. I’m almost jealous,” he added, with a half-sincere grin, and Sirius was startled into a bark of laughter.

“Merlin, I’m rubbing off on you in the worst way,” he muttered. “Your dad used to comment on my ‘Black humor.’ He thought he was very clever.” Sirius smiled faintly.

Harry sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Was he?” Harry breathed, his eyes so bright with longing that Sirius thought his heart would stop. “Was he very clever?”

“Clever?” Sirius managed hoarsely, then cleared his throat and smiled. “Sure. Your mum wouldn’t have give him the time of day if he wasn’t.”

Harry looked wistful. “No one ever talks to me about them really, except Professor Lupin a bit, but it always seemed like it made him sad.” Harry cocked his head at Sirius. “It doesn’t seem like it makes you sad.”

Sirius shook his head. “No. It makes me happy. What do you want to know?”

****

The next night Harry appeared in the doorway and Sirius was already awake. They went downstairs and watched a movie on the Muggle television. It didn’t hold Sirius’s attention, but Harry laughed and relaxed and the shadow went out of his eyes, and that held Sirius’s attention instead.

The night after that, Sirius didn’t dream of Azkaban.

In the dream he did have, he was lying back on his old bed in the dormitory at Hogwarts, listening to James snore. The snoring was not unfamiliar, but he had never heard it up close. He rolled over in the darkness of his drawn bedcurtains and there James was, hair messy on Sirius’s second pillow, chest rising and falling. Alive.

“Jamie,” Sirius whispered, and James smiled. He rolled over to nuzzle at Sirius’s neck, and Sirius sighed and relaxed, lying down on his back. He hadn’t had _this_ dream since before Azkaban.

Sirius hadn’t lusted over James consciously, but degree of interest while awake hadn’t had much bearing on the cast of Sirius’s dreams as a young man.

Still, there was something satisfying about taking a handful of that messy hair and shoving James toward Sirius’s jerking hips.

“I need…” Sirius muttered, and James leaned his head back to meet Sirius’s gaze. His eyes were open now, and they were bright green.

Sirius awoke with a gasp, and saw Harry standing in the doorway.

“Sirius,” he said, looking worried. “Are you…?”

“I just, um, need a mo,” Sirius said, aware of how rough his voice sounded, and that he was harder than he’d been since he was a teenager. Worst of all, looking at the gangly boy— _boy, godson, James’s son_ —was making him harder yet. His tented boxers and the weight of the sheet were agony.

“Okay,” Harry said, and melted back into the darkness. When the door swung closed, Sirius kicked out from under the covers, struggled out of his pants, grasped his cock with a gasp and froze.

He would _not_. He _could not_ wank to the thought of Harry.

But his hand was already moving, sure and firm, and if he hadn’t choked it back he would have whimpered Harry’s name when he came.

**Author's Note:**

> This was never intended to be more than a one shot, but it feels unfinished, so I think there could be more. I'd love to know what you thought!


End file.
